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I could hear the motor whirring on his mobility scooter as he approached, a black flag flying behind him. At a glance, it looked like a Jolly Roger. On closer inspection, it was a Dia De Los Muertos styled skull, adorned with The Legend of Zelda imagery. He didn’t pause for pleasantries, as was his custom, but went right to the point.

“I started on your pen,” he said, rocking his head side to side, as was his characteristic, signature body language.

Probably about a year before, I’d admired some hand-turned pens he was displaying for sale. They were all very nice roller balls, beautifully finished exotic woods. I asked if he did any fountain pens, and he said that he could do a fountain pen, but he’d need to order the kit. He asked me about material, and I told him that I wasn’t picky. He had a good eye for that sort of thing. I offered him some pink ivory pen blanks that I wound up with, and he encouraged me to get a pen lathe and try my hand at it instead.

“It’s not that hard, and the lathes are cheap,” he said, “but, I’ll still make one for you. I’ll make it special.”

So here, a year later, I responded, “Oh yeah?

“I just didn’t want you to think that I’ve forgotten about you. Yeah,” he said, “you’re getting antler.”

I exclaimed, “oh, cool!”

He started explaining, “it’s taking some time because I had to rough cut the material and resin impregnate it…”

I interrupted, “because it’s so porous. That stuff is like bone sponge.”

“Exactly,” he nodded.

That was the weekend that my last thirteen posts have addressed. I’m pretty sure it was Sunday, April 30, because the lights were on in the building at the fairgrounds. It may have been that awful Friday though. The time stream kind of blurs in there. And, that was the last weekend we saw him.

Michael Logan was the kind of man that didn’t know a stranger. He would talk your ear off, and just when you thought you couldn’t take any more, he’d buzz off on his scooter, other people to talk up, other things to do. We were friends from the first time we met. I usually distrust people who are so friendly on first meeting, and I’ve been working on that. The back of my mind asks “what’s your angle; what are you trying to get from me?” I’ve since come to learn that some people just really are that friendly. Michael didn’t know a stranger. He was a cancer survivor, and despite his broken body, he would show up to the party anywhere his mobility scooter would allow. He was a very special person, and more alive than most people I’ve known ambulating on their own two legs. He would send me a message every now and then, at random, reading, “Good Lord, man! Go back to bed!” Most of the time, this had absolutely no context, night or day, but became a beloved surprise when he sent it. I’m sad that I’ll be receiving no more of those.

I met Michael through the Oklahoma Retro Gamers Society. Whoever says that video games have no redemptive quality has clearly never met in a room with like minded folks to communally enjoy the fandom. I feel loved by these people, and I love them in return. They’ve seen me at my worst, and maybe near my best, but they have always accepted me. If it weren’t for video games, I would have probably never met him.

I kind of always knew that I’d outlive him, but I could never be prepared. I found out last night via FaceBook that he had passed from this mortal coil. I was shocked. Numb. Of course, I was sad, but I couldn’t even fully feel that, if that makes any sense at all. He’ll be missed by many. He’ll be missed by me. The mutual friend who shared the news asked if we had any pictures of the two of them getting into “wheel chair races.” Regrettably, we do not. He actually wrote up a piece about Michael on his own blog here, which is quite touching. Said friend is not relegated to a wheel chair, but there was one available, and he likes to clown around like that. Michael was the kind of guy that saw the good time in such shenanigans. I’d love to have some pictures of that kind of silliness. Please do go and read Jennifer’s write up, if you haven’t already.

I don’t know what finally took him, but his health was poor, so I don’t even care to make conjecture. Still, I don’t even get my damned pen. My Michael Logan, antler, fountain pen. Not that the pen itself matters at all, but he was making it special for me. I guess I’ll have to pick up a pen lathe after all. As a tribute. R. I. P., friend.

If you missed my experience with the MRI on Friday, it’s right here in Part 10.

So obviously, when we got home with the disk, we threw it in a laptop drive to see what we could see, like The Bear that Went Over the Mountain. The software to read the scan files was on the disk along with all of the scan files. Convenient. So, we looked at my brain. It looked like a brain. But, paranoia drew my eyes to the asymmetry.

“There’s this cavity on both sides of my brain, but it’s slightly larger on the left than the right! What does it mean? WHAT DOES IT MEAN?!?”

When Jennifer drove me in for my EEG, I was obviously getting tired of tests, but trying to be a good sport and find the entertainment value. They’d told me that I had to get up at 6:00, no coffee, fast, and go in with clean hair, because they were going to stick a bunch of probes on my head. I did them one better and shaved my head the night before. The waiting room was small. Everything felt small. I felt small. There was another couple in the waiting room. He had one of those old lady walkers with the seat, and he was on an oxygen bottle. There was also a plant in the waiting room. I’m pretty sure there were magazines, but nothing that I wanted to read. After what seemed like an eternity waiting, I got called in. The tech/nurse/professional (I don’t even know what to call these people anymore) was a cute little black gal. She led the two of us to the testing room and directed me to a chair. Before she started wiring me up, she told Jennifer that she’d have to go back to the waiting room.

She started attaching the little sticky probe pads to my head, “clean shaved, making my day!”

“Well,” I said, “I usually keep it shaved. I was getting a little fuzzy, and I thought this might make your job easier.”

I knew that they’d put probes on my head. I do have Google, after all. But, I was thinking like six to eight probes. It took her a good twenty minutes to wire me up, because she stuck no fewer than a bajillion of those little sticker probes all over my head, my face, my neck, my chest… Why are you probing my nipples to scan my brain? the first part of the test was clearly to get me relaxed. She turned the lights off and told me to close my eyes. Get your brain out of the gutter. She did NOT light candles NOR put on romantic music. Next, I was instructed to hyperventilate. This also made sense. Brain, sleep deprived, no caffeine, relaxing, oxygenated. Sure, if they’re going to induce a seizure-like state so they can scan my brainwaves through my nipples, then all else they’d need is flashing lights, right? Oh. So, that was the next step. She had me close my eyes again and there was a strobe in my face that went at various intervals. The pattern got to the point that I knew what interval was coming next. Although my eyes were closed, the strobe was intense enough to see through my eyelids. Once the test was finally done, Jennifer drove me home.

I talked to Doc Neuro. He had The Disk in his computer in the examination room. We may or may not have copied said disk. Hey, we paid a lot of money for that disk! Spinning his mouse wheel, he noted, “yeah, your brain looks normal. It looks fine. And, these images are sharp! I can see you’ve got some sinus congestion, but you live in Oklahoma, and most of us have sinus congestion this time of year. I can prescribe something for that, if you’d like.”

If you missed how I got a recommendation to get an MRI yesterday, you can check that out in Part 9.

I called my aunt’s clinic and identified myself. The receptionist said, “I’ve been expecting your call,” and put me on hold. When I spoke with my aunt, she explained that she was really busy and that she was going to put me on with her scheduler. Her scheduler said they could work me in that afternoon at five.

“After close?” I asked.

“Well, yeah,” she said, “but it’s okay.”

“No,” I said, “I don’t want to keep a rad tech late on my account. They should get home to their families, and I want their A-game for my health.”

So, I got an appointment later that week. At the imaging clinic, they have changing rooms. The magnet that powers an MRI is powerful enough that you can’t have anything metallic in the room. Contrary to popular belief, it won’t rip black ink out of your tattoo or tear the braces off a kid’s teeth, but metallic objects will affect imaging negatively. Put something ferrous enough in the vicinity and it will move stuff. I’ve heard rumored anecdotes of poorly planned MRI rooms that were sucking cars from parking spaces in basement parking and pulling oxygen bottles through walls. I don’t know how true any of that is, but we’re talking major magnetic power. So, I stripped down, put on their one-size-fits-all-and-so-fits-none-scrubs, left my jewelry and everything, and went in to get my MRI. The tech put a pillow around my head to keep me still and a Hannibal Lecter cage over my face.

“Are you claustrophobic?” she asked me.

I answered, “only extremely.”

Then she asked, “should I give you a Valium?”

“No, thank you,” I said, “no drugs, please.”

“Are you sure?”

“Very,” I said, “I’ll tough it out. I’ll be okay.”

She stuffed some ear plugs in my ears and cranked me into the scanner. They tell you to lay still in an MRI. I always thought that meant that you had to keep the part of your body that you are getting scanned still. Not so! Apparently, any movement in the room can screw up the imaging process. When scanning my head, I couldn’t wiggle my toes or it was messing up the scan. Who knew?!? She explained to me over the intercom that they were doing a battery of scans that would each be up to twenty minutes long, and asked if it would help if she told me when we were between scans.

“Yes! Good grief, yes! I’m a wiggly, squirmy dude. If I can have a break to stretch out between scans, we can make this easier for both of us!”

I understand that even a 1.5-Tesla machine is loud. The 3.0 is downright deafening. It sounds like this: “UNGH UNGH UNGH UNGH UNGH UNGH click UNGH click UNGH click UNGH click UNGH click VEEEEEEEOOOOOOOHHHHHH UNGH click UNGH click UNGH click UNGH UNGH UNGH UNGH UNGH UNGH UNGH” So on, and so forth. Finally, she used the winch to pull me back out of the machine. While I was still strapped in, Hannibal-style, she said she needed to give me the contrast fluid for round two.

“If you feel up to it,” she said.

“Um,” I said, “do I have a choice?” strapped down, at her mercy.

“Of course you do,” she said.

“I just had a CT scan with contrast. They dumped a Home Depot caulk gun of silicone into me for that.”

“Oh,” she exclaimed, “yeah, that takes a lot! This is different.”

From under my Hannibal mask, I raised an eyebrow, “how much?”

“What do you weigh?” she asked.

“135.”

I could see her doing the math in her head. I was thinking that I could pretty easily bust through the restraints and make a run for the door. Yeah, I’d miss my jewelry, and those are pretty nice jeans I left in the changing room, but you know, I’m getting tired of all of this. When she told me what the dosage was it was like 5cc or less. I don’t remember the exact number.

“Let’s do this thing,” I said.

She pulled the syringe and drew the contrast fluid. That didn’t look so bad.

“you know,” I commented, trying to keep it conversational, “not only am I claustrophobic, and I hate to be still, but I also have a deep hatred for needles.”

She was sweet. She offered, “we can stop if you want.”

“I’ve come this far,” I said, “I may as well see it through.”

So, I turned my head, as best as I could within the restraints, and got a needle in the arm again. For the record, the scarring has healed and I no longer look like a heroin addict. She pushed the button and conveyor-belted me into the belly of the giant magnet again. “UNGH UNGH UNGH UNGH UNGH chick chock chick chock UNGH UNGH UNGH UNGH UNGH” It occurred to me that I have some really comfy pajama pants at home; not the used-a-million-times-by-strangers scrubs in a size XX-huge, but they have a drawstring, but Oakly-branded fuzzy pants that fit nicely. But, I was about done, so moot point. Side note: I’m also sensitive to magnetic fields. I know that the point was to align the molecules in my head so they could capture a 3D image of my brain, but that much focused magnetic field screws with my head. But anyway, round two was only like fifteen minutes, to my great joy!

“You made it!” she said as she reeled me out of my prison and started removing my restraints, “I’m so proud of you!”

I smiled at her and said, “that was the worst Nine Inch Nails concert I’ve ever been to!”

The look on her face told me she didn’t get the joke. Damn. Not only was that a good one, but when will I ever get a chance to deliver it again?

She asked when I was to see Doc Neuro again, “do I need to make sure he gets the scans, or can I just burn a disk for you to take with you?”

Jennifer and I looked at each other conspiratorially and said in unison, “burn a disk.”

Next week, this series will come to a close, starting on Monday, when there will be yet more radiation exposure in Part 11.

I called the neurologist’s office. The receptionist was *ahem* unwelcoming.

“We don’t take referrals from the ER,” she huffed.

I replied, “I’m personal friends with the doctor. We went to church together and were in the same Sunday School class for quite a few years.”

“Well,” she said, “I’ll just have to ask him about that.”

She took my information. I received a call back from her a couple hours later, and her tone was significantly more positive, “yes, Mr. Robot? We can work you in on Thursday.”

“Thank you.”

My test results were trickling in. It seemed slow at first, but it was probably a lot quicker than I think, in all fairness. Everything happened so fast, but the want for answers makes everything grind to a perceptive crawl. My blood pressure had been high in the ER (135/96), which is odd, because my BP has always been low. ER Doc had said that my chest X-Ray “looks beautiful. My CT scans were clean, and my urinalysis was good. There were a couple of blips in my blood work, but nothing too worrisome. In a word, they couldn’t really find anything that might have caused a seizure. Jennifer took off work and took me to see the neurologist.

Doc Neuro had a stern, sincerely concerned look on his face. He greeted me and shook my hand. He had me walk around the examination room. “The sobriety test?” I asked.” (BTW, I’ve never had do do one of those roadsides, FWIW.)

He chuckled uncomfortably, “pretty much.”

I sat on the table. He whacked my knees with the little mallet. It tickled and it was so funny to watch my reflexes working. I actually tried to resist, but it didn’t help. This made me giggle. Doc Neuro said that he wanted an EEG, which they could do right there in the office, and that he wanted to see an MRI. I was a little surprised that the CT with contrast wasn’t good enough. “It can be a little tough to get in for an MRI, but I can get you a referral,” he said.

I countered, “my aunt owns an imaging clinic here in the city. I’m pretty sure I can get in there.”

The common, going MRI runs on a 1.5-Tesla magnet. When my aunt set up shop, she sprung for the 3.0-Tesla machine, which produces far higher resolution images.

“Tell her to not bother,” said Doc Neuro, “the higher resolution can be nice, but sometimes that level of clarity muddies the issue. 1.5 is fine.” But, that’s what my aunt has. He offered to prescribe an anti-convulsive, but I was hesitant. He said that if I changed my mind, he’s go ahead and write a prescription after the fact. After looking up possible side effects, I decided that I didn’t really want to do that unless I really felt like I was going to have another seizure.

While I was putting my socks and shoes on to gather up and leave, Doc Neuro stormed back in and shoved a half a piece of notebook paper at me with, “154/94” scrawled on it. “That’s too high,” he declared. I knew my blood pressure was too high. For the last couple of weeks my blood was boiling. I could freaking feel my pulse at any given time. My veins have always stood out on my arms ever since my teens, but at this time, I could look at my arm and watch my pulse. I knew it was too high. That seizure. Of course my BP was up. My jaw was popping and I don’t know that I didn’t crack a tooth in there. When your brain goes haywire for a few minutes and tells every muscle cell in your body to go into high mode, your bones and teeth grind, and your BP goes nuts too. For what it’s worth, my blood pressure has gone back to normal by now.

Doc Neuro ordered another blood work. Great. More needles. I hate needles. We went to the lab for the blood work. They got me right in. The phleb who stuck me was really good, but she did make fun of me for how I reacted to the needle. Come on, lady! I’ve got track marks now! You people are making my right arm into a pin cushion! I half expected her to give me a lollipop for my bravery.

If you didn’t get to read about my visit to the ER, you can catch up on Part 7.

Before it was even bright and early, on Saturday, April 29, 2017, we loaded up our photo gear in a friend’s pickup. He drove us as well as one of our neighbors, whom we’d drafted to the team, and we all headed out to the fairgrounds. A tornado had hit the venue overnight. Trees were torn asunder. There was an arch that was a miniaturized version of the famous one in St. Louis. Was. For half a century that thing was a landmark there. Nature decided to flatten it. There are pics. The building had quite a bit of water in it, and an overhead door next to our main stage had been blown off its tracks. We had no power. Vendors and exhibitors had set up the day before, but they wandered around in the dark and hovered over their wares, guarding against looters in the dark; not a bad idea, but we didn’t have looters present. Local law enforcement was blocking con-goers from the grounds. It took some doing, some creative detouring for even we, officials, to get in. We got some interesting pics in the dark arena. When your cam rig is rocking clean ISO 12,800 and lenses ranging from f1.4 to 2.0, they don’t care that it’s dark. We weren’t there for very long. There was no point in it. Some plucky con-attendees made it to the building, but we were obviously turning them away at the door. It was heart-breaking. “Evyl, why do you carry a flashlight?” Um, this. This is why. Why don’t YOU have a flashlight in your pocket? We went home. The rest of Saturday is fuzzy. We got the car home and secured gear. I assume we ate something and went to bed. There was a party Saturday night, but we didn’t go.

When I crossed paths with our friend, she kissed me on the cheek, squeezed me and said, “loves you!”

I hugged her in return, “loves you!”

The con on Sunday was awesome, if also trying. The crowd of attendees was amazing. The vendors were out in full-force and having a great time. I admit that I purchased some really wonderful items, as did Jennifer. I didn’t get the quantity nor quality of photos that I wanted to, but I’ll fairly give myself a pass there. As you can imagine, I was feeling slightly less than perfectly steady. Playing ‘make up for lost time’ went well. I’d patched together a camera tripod dolly out of an old lady walker and some random hardware store parts that I broke out for a little while for some time lapse work. It did feel good to finally be shooting with a camera setup that I was confident with, Jennifer with her twin to mine, and our son with his upgraded DSLR as well. I put my hands in there. As with years previous, I visually documented, but I also got in and did the labor required of the volunteer group. Every time I bumped into the ball pit kid, who was there when I went down, he looked like he was looking at a ghost. At some point over the weekend, Jennifer told me that she had to wipe blood and bile off my face and ear before I came to, and that it was like I was trying to hit myself. Later, there was a nasty, blue and green bruise that blossomed on the inside of my right thigh shaped like knuckles. Yeah.
It had been a lot worse than I had realized.

Over the weekend, I didn’t feel that bad, but I felt like someone had beat me up. It wasn’t just a feeling. I had beat me up. My tongue hurt where I’d bitten it. Nobody would have blamed me for sitting out the weekend, but it was important for me to be there. For one, these friends of mine needed to see that it didn’t take me down. For two, I wasn’t going to miss out on the weekend. I have no regrets. I had a fight with my brain. And, I won.

Tomorrow, I’ll start getting into follow up medical appointments in Part 9.

If you weren’t here yesterday, you find out how I got to the Emergency Room in Part 6.

The EMTs wheeled me through the ER, down the hall, past all the rooms, to a strange little room in the very back. The room had white tile on the floor, and the walls were tiled to the ceiling. There was a second door that looked like it went straight outdoors. It looked like it might have been an operating room for the ER? Yikes! Please don’t cut me open today.

They unstrapped me from the stretcher, which was faint relief, and I was instructed to strip down and put on the hospital gown. Interesting. I’ve never had to wear one of these before. As I said in the beginning, I’d never really been admitted to a hospital. Like the EMTs, the ER staff people were all awesome. The doctor was a little Filipino man. He spoke to me deliberately and slowly. There was a nurse with a Latin accent who took my vitals and info. She was really sweet. Somebody put one of those flexible plastic needles in my arm and took blood, and pumped me full of Ativan and who knows what. That’s when things got interesting.

I was needing to use the restroom already. I’d been eyeing the restroom attached to the treatment room, but I was in the bed, in nothing but my backwards cape, and I didn’t want anyone to yell at me for trying to climb out of bed with a crapton of Ativan flowing through my veins. So, when the nurse brought me a bottle and asked me to pee in it, all I could manage to say was, “thank God, yes! I need to go!” They stole some of my blood. Then, this young dude with a northern-ish midwest accent came in with an X-Ray machine. Like everyone else, this tech was very pleasant and likable. The machine looked like freaking Glados from Portal 2 on wheels. Dude introduced himself and started adjusting Glados, snapping her joints into position, each detent clicking loudly into its lock. The drugs were doing a number on my perception by this point, and the lens head on the machine looked like Oleg Volk in a fever nightmare. They had shewed Jennifer out of the room by this point. Because radiation, doncha know.

He draped a lead blanket over my hips, from navel to knees, and commented, “that’s to protect your boys from the radiation.”

So, he snapped a few shots of the inside of my chest, took back his testicle blanket, collapsed Glados, and wheeled her away, just like that.

Next, they wheeled me to the CT scan. “Computed tomography,” for those of you who might not already know. I’ve been told after the fact that you’re not supposed to look into those things. They either didn’t tell me at the time or I was so high on the ER goofballs that I didn’t understand. But, I watched those red lights with fascination. That was COOL! I’ve also been told after the fact that the red lights don’t exactly move so much. But, I swear, they were spinning clear around my head. Or, that’s what I saw, anyway. They told me that they were going to give me an injection of contrast fluid for a second round with the CT scan.

“Is this the stuff that makes you feel funny?” I asked with as much vagueness as should be expected from the sedatives.

“Um, yes,” the nurse/tech said, with great patience, “some people say it feels like you need to pee.”

“Yeah, okay. I’ve heard of that,” I mumbled.

So, she took this CAULK TUBE! I swear, this tube of contrast fluid was a good inch and a half in diameter and at least six inches long! And, when she injected it through the needle that was still hanging out of my arm, it felt thick going in. If the blood in your veins has a viscosity like watch oil, this stuff was like 80-weight gear grease. It only took a second before I felt it through my body. It didn’t make me feel like I needed to pee so much, but I get why people say that. It was more like everything got warm all of a sudden; not like going into a warm room, but from the inside. Suffice it to say, it was weird. They stuck my head back in the CT scanner for yet another dose of radiation, and spinning red lights, that aren’t really spinning, that you aren’t supposed to look at anyway. For a huge chunk of this time, they’d wired me for sound and had me hooked up to the EKG. I watched that for a while and tried to consciously change my vitals to freak out some pros. I’d been able to do this before, but it wasn’t working for me that particular day, for some strange reason.

Doc told me that I couldn’t drive. Initially, I thought this was medical advice. I wasn’t about to try after all that medication. But, in Oklahoma you can’t legally drive for six months after a seizure. Without looking up the actual code, it reads something to the effect of “losing consciousness involuntarily,” which is kind of stupid. So, if Party 1 puts a sleeper hold on Party 2, then Party 2 can’t drive for six months? That just doesn’t seem right. Doc also told me that I needed to see a neurologist. The EMTs and nurses had pre-warned me about this, and also warned me that it could take up to six months to get an appointment with a neurologist, and I’d probably have a similar wait for a subsequent MRI. Doc recommended a couple of names to see for a neurologist. As it turns out, we personally know one of the neurologists he recommended! I’ll tell you more about that in a bit.

Jennifer asked Doc, “We are scheduled to work a convention at the Fairgrounds over the weekend. Is he okay to do that?”

Doc paused, “Um… Yes, as long as he feels up to that, it should be okay. But, only if he feels up to it.”

“I will…” I don’t think anyone actually heard me.

At some point in all of this, I called my parents. I vaguely remember talking to them. I was high as a kite. I told them that I’d had a major seizure, but I was okay. I’m in the ER, but I think they’re going to let me go, so they don’t need to come or anything, I just wanted to let them know what was going on. No biggie, right? They were right there before I knew it, of course. At the beginning of the year, we switched our medical insurance from a PPO (I think) to an HSA. The deductible is a lot higher on the HSA, but the hook is that it will totally pay off in the long run if you don’t need to use the major medical anytime soon. Like, yeah. It’s way worth it just as long as you don’t have to have an expensive ER visit because your stupid brain decides to reboot all of a sudden. Because when you’ve been paying into your HSA for long enough, nothing comes out of pocket anymore. The deductible, co-pays, everything comes out of your Health Savings Account, as long as you’ve paid into it. But, if you only started a few months ago, and your head freaking blue-screens on you, you’re up a creek. Fortunately, the cute little Latina nurse gave us paperwork for an application for an interest-free loan. I was in no position to sign off on it, but Jennifer’s signature was good enough, apparently. As long as we pay it off in seven years, it should be good. We weren’t on the hook for nearly as much as I was afraid, and we can pay the loan pre-tax. I can think of a whole bunch of stuff I’d rather spend that kind of money on, but it will be alright. *Humph.* So, since my parents were still at the hospital when they discharged me, and our car was still at the Fairgrounds, they gave us a ride home. I slept the sleep of the gods that night.

If you didn’t tune in on Friday, go to Part 5, to read about when I got to meet the nice EMTs.

So, the nice EMTs strapped me down to their gurney, which sucked. And then, they clamped said gurney into the back of the ambulance, which sucked more. And then, we got out into traffic, which sucked even more than that. Have you ever noticed how a-holes in traffic will bulldog you and then whip around you if you’re not going fast enough for them? Have you ever seen how they’ll do that even worse to emergency vehicles? When they have you immobilized in the back of that big white taxi, you are facing the back of the rig, right through the big window in that back door, so you get a close-and-personal view of said a-holes. And, I couldn’t even move around. It was horrible. At least Jennifer rode in the ambulance with me. The EMTs were really nice, even if they did laugh at my vocal protestations on the other idiots on the road. Goatee dude was driving. The gal stuck needles in my arm. I’m not sure whether I was being medicated, blood drawn, checked for glucose, or what.

“How are you doing back there?” asked the driver.

“Do you really have to ask?”

The EMTs laughed. They were seriously awesome. I felt like I was being laughed at, but I was not offended.

He asked, “what’s your name?”

“EVYL ROBOT.”

“Do you know what year it is?”

This time I knew, “2017.”

“Do you know who the president is?”

*deep sigh* “Donald JAAAAAYYYY Trump!”

There was more laughter. That can’t be an easy job. It’s nice to see people who enjoy the work, in whatever industry. That was actually what I was thinking when I finally got distracted from the other idiots on the road. Thanks be on High, the ride to the hospital went fairly quickly. But, that’s when the next exciting batch of funs started.

If you didn’t read about the last thing I can remember before this, go back and read Part 4.

I was laying on my back on the floor. There were people in the room; other volunteers. Jennifer was on one side of my head, with my arm in her arms. One of our dear friends was cradling my head in her lap. She was kissing me on the forehead and chanting in a shushing tone something along the lines of, “it’s going to be okay,” or “please be okay,” or “you’re going to be okay,” or maybe simply, “you’re okay.” I haven’t yet had the opportunity to ask her about this, and it’s obviously spotty for me at this point. She’s been in nursing school for a while. Between her and Jennifer, I was already in good hands.

When you have a seizure, your brain has a hard reboot. There is no consciousness in the event. Neurons fire at random. I understand that mine was quite a bit more violent than what I’ve witnessed in the past. They used to call this a “grand mal seizure,” but now it’s called a “tonic clonic seizure.” As it turns out, I just discovered a great new cocktail: rocks glass, ice cubes, pour in bitters and tonic water, SHAKE VIOLENTLY and bite your tongue!

After Jenni and our friend coaxing me into consciousness, the next thing I remember are the EMTs. Disclaimer: this is where memory gets really scrambled, so although I won’t claim anyone had tentacles, I’m probably not describing people or events accurately. A man and a woman whom I did not recognize were standing over me, big smiles and anime eyes.

“Who are these guys?” I asked. That floor felt so comfortable. It was a good nap, apparently. Everything was kind of numb like I’d just had a really deep sleep. I recognized my friends, but not these two strangers. The man looked latino and had a goatee. I can’t describe the woman with him, but they were both sweet.

“We’re here to take you to the Emergency Room,” big smiles.

I slowly shook my head, “Why would you do that?

Still big smiles, “because you just had a seizure.”

“No,” I protested, “I didn’t have any seizure.” After the fact, Jennifer has said that I had an attitude like “nah, you’ve got the wrong guy.” LOL!

“Yeah, you did,” said Jennifer.

“Can you try to sit up…”

So, I popped up off the floor and crossed my legs, ‘Indian-style.’

“…slowly? Okay, then….”

“Can you tell me your name?”

“Evyl. Evyl Robot.”

“Do you know what year it is?”

“Um… Ummmm…. Wait, I’ve got this.”

I still didn’t want to go to the ER, and said so.

“Can you tell me who the president is?”

“Uh…”

The second-mentioned founding RGS member looked at me, concern in his eyes, “I really think you should go to the hospital.”

I looked to Jennifer who agreed. “Do I have to ride in the ambulance?” I asked.

“Oh, no,” she said, “I’M not driving you.”

*sigh.* “Fine.”

They coached me to climb onto the stretcher to whisk me away for medical treatment. *growl.*

If you haven’t read about the drive to the Fairgrounds in Part 3, you really should.

We had set up a table in the volunteer break room specifically for the photo team. There were tables all around the room, prepped for the convention. We had a floor map taped to the wall so we could physically check off which artists and vendors we had taken pictures of. Snacks and drinks sprawled across two tables for the volunteers. Jennifer had already told me several times that I didn’t look right and I should sit down and take it easy, but I’d have none of that. Work through it, you know?

Several years ago, there was another con that was an absolute disaster; not our con, mind you. The attendance was pathetic and a feature they had was a “ball pit,” which consisted of a small kiddy pool with the plastic balls in it. Their few exhibitors were understandably dissatisfied, so the con offered them “complimentary time in the ball pit” as consolation. It was so funny to us that our people set up a small ball pit in our volunteer room. Ours was an inflatable unit with net walls, big enough for two adults to lay down in, or several children to play in.

This is when my memory starts to get a little spotty. A lot of the central event memories only came back to me later, for what that’s worth. It was weird to have the memories start filling out in the weeks after. But, I’m two-thousand words into this already, and I’m only just now getting to the point, so I should digress. What I’ll give you next is the complete memory as it is now, rather than feed it I perceived it flowing back to me. If that makes any sense at all.

I was in the break room at about 2:00 p.m., helping another volunteer set up the aforementioned ball pit. The fixture itself is packaged in a nylon bag like a camping tent. We spread it out on the floor, and there was an air pump to keep it inflated like a bouncy house. I remember spreading it out, and either he or I attached the air pump. Then, I remember leaning over to straighten out some of the material as it inflated, and things went black. Do you know what it feels like when you stand up too fast and you see stars or sometimes black? That’s what it felt like, but I didn’t get up from it. It felt like being sick, and then nothing.

So, I drove the stupid truck. The weather sucked. It wasn’t exactly raining so much as misting. It was like Peru rain; just enough to run the wipers and make the road slick. In a truck that I was unfamiliar with that weighs like a million pounds. With an uneven load in it. Because the guys who loaded it don’t move stuff for a living (not a slam, God love them), but are a bunch of retail employees, accountants, and bankers. And, it was really windy. In a box truck. With the aerodynamics of a sail boat. I kept sipping on my Coke, trying to stay relaxed, despite feeling the load settling, and the wind rocking the NPR like a pirate’s ship in a storm on the high seas. With Jennifer leading the way, many-a-car cut between us to mash their brakes and hit an exit ramp, as though they wanted to get squashed by tons of video games. Despite my efforts, I white-knuckled that steering wheel all the way to our destination. Pulling into the gate at the Fairgrounds felt like the greatest accomplishment in the world. But, the trip wasn’t over yet.

I had never noticed how narrow the roads are at the Fairgrounds, but then, I’d always driven there in an imported compact car or compact truck, not the freaking Technodrome. I was doing okay until I went through this one intersection. I stopped at the stop sign, turned on the signal to turn right, and pulled out. Apparently, I didn’t swing out enough. I didn’t so much hit the stop sign, as scrape it. Incidentally, that stop sign was exactly at the same height as the rivets on the truck’s box, so, they strummed that stop sign like a guitar all the way down the box. Pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop… Of course, from my perspective, it was more like, “pop *fuck* pop *fuck* pop *God, please make this stop!* pop *ooh fuck*, etc., et al. Some of our aforementioned millennials in the party were trailing, and I could hear them snickering in my mind.

By the time we got to the venue, I had to pull the seat cushion out of my butt crack and pry my fingers out of the grooves that I’d crushed into the steering wheel. Backing the freaking building on wheels into the State Fair building was no big deal as compared to dealing with traffic with it on the highway. We got the thing unloaded, and I threw the keys at someone, disavowing it for eternity. Through the morning, I found myself irritable, drowsy, nauseated, and foul. I continued to sip at my Coke until it was empty. I helped set up display cases, arcade cabinets, tables, and stuff in general. I drank some coffee. I took pictures, and some time lapse video. Someone brought in a couple bags from McDonald’s filled with sausage biscuits and cheeseburgers. I still had no appetite, but I felt like I should eat.

I picked out a cheeseburger and took a couple nibbles. It was hard to swallow. I was drinking a lot of water because I knew that dehydration was a real risk. The place looked great! There were a couple of cars that got staged in the building; a DeLorean, the actual yellow and blue Jeep pickup from the movie Twister, a Jeep done up in Jurassic Park theme. We continued to set up exhibitor tables with table cloths and everything we’d need for the weekend. Between setting up fixtures, and unloading gear, and taking pictures, I’d make my way back to that same cheeseburger and nibbled at it a little more, force it down. I’d developed a cough. I assumed that it was allergies from the dust stirred up from the tables and table cloths and storage contents. Jennifer asked the Twister truck owner if we could set a camera in the bed, and he assured us that there was no way we could hurt it. My cough kept getting worse. I’d kind of gag at the end of the cough. Nasty allergies!

Tomorrow, I’ll let you in on what this is all leading up to in Part 4.